Time to turn over the crown: a temporal narrative analysis of royal leadership succession

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to capture legitimising principles of recent successions to the throne through narrative time. Further, this study considers leaders’ sense-giving to succession.

Design/methodology/approach

This research applies a “temporal narrative analysis” to explicate legitimising principles of narrative time in three recent case studies of royal succession: the kingdoms of Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Findings

The findings show that royal successions in three modern European constitutional monarchies are legitimised through giving sense to narrative time. The legitimacy of timing succession is embedded in multiple temporal narratives, in which heirs apparent are brought forward as the new generation who will modernise the monarchy.

Originality/value

The paper presents an innovative conceptual framework of sense-giving to succession through narrative time. This framework will be helpful to scholars who aim to grasp legitimising principles of temporal narration in leadership succession.

Citation

van Vulpen, B., Scherpenisse, J. and van Twist, M. (2020), "Time to turn over the crown: a temporal narrative analysis of royal leadership succession", International Journal of Public Leadership, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 41-58. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPL-03-2019-0010